Some thoughts on the in-between-ness of Venice

Venice has long been attributed with a particularly in-between-like quality. Perhaps most consistently, it has been described as a gateway, or portal between East and West, inextricably linking European and Islamic worlds through trade and commerce at least since the 8th century. Venice might not have developed from a fishing village into the powerful maritime republic it became, had it not been for its strategic middle position in the trade routes importing profitable luxury goods from the East into Europe. 

As a thoroughfare for religious pilgrims, eighteenth and nineteenth-century scholars and aristocrats undertaking the 'Grand Tour' of Europe, and the vast throngs of tourists it attracts today, it has formed a temporary home to vast numbers of travellers. The travellers, of course, also form this Venice, this liminal place of heightened experience - this carneval or 'backpacking experience' - suspended temporarily in interregnum between the two bookends of routine, familiarity, home and the working year.

The more loquacious of them (from Lord Byron, Goethe, Proust to the Lonely Planet, and of course Art Review/Art Forum/Art Monthly, and one could add to the list Geoff Dyer's recent sharp observation of the jaded biennale tourist, Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi), have penned myriad accounts in which a thousand Venices unfold in multiple configurations of the same story. As Erica Jong said about it, it is the 'city of mirrors, the city of mirages'.

Like any city, its in-between-ness continues beyond the specificities of trade economies and histories; a shifting identity that transmutes and is subject to the vagaries of each moment-by-moment as throngs of people move through it and as it passes through seasons and times of day.  Suspended betwixt and between, Piazza St Marco can at any one time take on a multitude of characteristics: early in the morning, during a period of 'acqua alta', it is an expanse of quiet water reflecting the surrounding architecture; mid-weekend, at mid-day, it bristles with the frenetic agendas of camera-wielding tourists. Yesterday as I passed through, it had become a stage set for a wedding shoot; it was unclear to me whether the wedding was real, or an elaborate staging, yet another layer in the multiple layers of representation comprising this city.

Below are a few images of various entrances and portals, found on my rambles through the city.

The eighteenth-century doorway of the Palazzo Fondazione Claudio Buzziol, the venue in which Francis Upritchard's work is exhibited

 
 
 Fabrice Gygi's crystal-like curtain hanging in the entrance to the off-site Swiss pavilion

 

Liam Gillick's hanging strips of soft coloured plastic at the German pavilion

A twisted dream-like evocation of 'door' in Ingmar Dragset's Nordic pavilion

 
 

A doorway in the Icelandic pavilion, leading onto sunlight and water beyond
 

Venice off-season

Venice off-season is a lovely thing. There is the excitement of 'acqua alta', there are far fewer tourists, and the city is bathed in a particularly mandarin-coloured light most evenings.

 

 

Having raced through as many pavilions as possible in June at the start of the Biennial, it feels luxurious to have the time to re-visit works, or to catch opportunities missed the first time round, and to see them in my own time, in ‘slow time’. One of the most interesting exhibitions I have seen the second time round, is a selection of works by the Serbian artist Braco Dimitrijevic at Ca’ Pesaro, one of the collateral events of the Biennial.  

In 1969 Dimitrijevic wrote, ‘There are no mistakes in history, the whole of history is a mistake’. In Dimitrijevic’s conception, time and history is an arbitrary force. Most that pass through it are erased indiscriminately and those that remain in human memory may do so by sheer accident. In the 1970s, Dimitrijevic himself became inscribed in art’s future histories with a series of works in which he acted as self-appointed arbiter of those whose names and faces will remain. An emergent artist at the time, he became known with his ‘Casual Passer-by’ works, in which he photographed unkown people from London’s streets and hung the resulting large-scale portraits in public sites, such as billboards and the facades of buildings.

Some of Dimitrijevic's more recent works are installed in the foyer of Ca' Pesaro. A large framed portrait of Franz Kafka sits at an angle in a little boat crammed with a collection of old leather shoes. Together, Kafka and the shoes set sail into the backwards and forwards flowing eddies of time past and time future. 

 

  
 

In the context of the Venice Biennale, Dimitrijevic’s work serves as a reminder of how we all participate in the construction of recognition and commemoration, and raises important questions as to the systems of legitimisation implicit within the structures of large-scale biennial-style exhibitions.

Upstairs at Ca’ Pesaro is a group exhibition titled after the brilliantly ghoulish 1973 Nicolas Roeg film Don’t Look Now, set in Venice.  The curator, Milovan Farronato, of the gallery Via Farrini in Milan, has placed a selection of contemporary works in seemingly arbitrary choreographies around and within the baroque and nineteenth-century works of Ca’ Pesaro’s historical collection.

Works run into and spin off each other in what to appear to be chance or entirely subjective configurations. A projection of green and yellow lights by Nico Vascellari is refracted in a set of mirrored panels and spills out onto the surrounding walls and over nineteenth-century busts in a room-size Gesamtkunstwerk.

 

 

 

A work by Paolo Gonato consists of a collection of damaged umbrellas that limp brokenly over the gallery floor, passing the sculptures and paintings of previous centuries like the straggling remains of a small army of tired and hungry insects.

 

If confusing and at time a little garish, the overall affect of the exhibition is, certainly, like the name-sake film, one of a feeling of estrangement, dislocation and lingering menace.

 

Meet the Venetians - Part 2

LUCIA VALLE

Venetian attendant for Judy Millar, Chiesa La Maddelena

Born: Venice, 1979 (Aquarius)

Lives: Cannaregio, Venice, Italy

Occupation: Church/Museum attendant

Political views: Liberal

Languages: Venetian, Italian, basic French, basic English

Lucia earned her Laurea in Cultural Heritage at Universita Ca Foscari. While she is currently employed as an attendant for many Venetian churches and museums, such as Museo Diocesano Sant’Appollonia, she is keen to rediscover her creativity working with ceramics and in sculpture. In time she would also like to curate and coordinate art exhibitions here in Venice. While Lucia was born in Venice, she still finds the city beguiling and unique, where unexpected encounters can be an every day occurrence. Travel is a priority, particularly to locations with vast open countryside and mountains to explore. Lucia believes there is a huge generation gap in Italy manifested by its political milieu and dominated by conservative Catholic ideology. She insists that the chasm is so wide that it is often difficult for the younger generation to have a voice, which she finds frustrating. This view is shared the majority of the Venetian attendants. Lucia’s interests are broad and eclectic, straddling the arts, sciences and cuisine...with the occasional Judy Garland movie thrown in for good measure.

 

MARIA MALTAURO

Venetian attendant for Judy Millar, Chiesa La Maddelena

Born: Vicenza (her mother is Venetian)

Lives: San Polo, Venice, Italy

Occupation: Church/Museum attendant

Political views: Complicated

Languages: Italian, English, basic French, basic German

Maria studied in Vicenza until tertiary level and subsequently moved to Venice where she enrolled at Universita Ca Foscari to gain her Laurea in Italian Literature. Currently, she is employed part time for IMAGO (a Venetian organization for churches and museums), as a guide. Maria is hoping to find a new job but laments that the opportunities in Venice are stagnant, which is why many Venetians who do not work in fields around tourism or arts heritage and conservation generally seek employment in other regions of Italy. While Maria has traveled extensively around Europe including England, Austria, Germany, Yugoslavia, Slovenia and France, she would love to visit New Zealand to hike in the mountains. Maria adores Venice for its tranquility and lack of cars, and the fact that the city still offers surprises even after living here for so many years. Maria has two brothers, one who resides in Vicenza and the other in Rome. She has a dog called Liz, two cats named Fatina and Fusolino, and three kittens called Spot, Tris and Rossolino. Maria is amused by the fact that at one time Venice had many resident cats, but since they were removed from the island, rats are evidently on the increase.

 

EMILIANO RAVAGNAN

Venetian attendant for Judy Millar, Chiesa La Maddelena

Born: Aviano, 1976 (Aquarius) (both parents are Venetian)

Lives: Mestre, Venice, Italy

Occupation: Church/Museum attendant

Political views: Pro Berlusconi

Languages: Italian, Venetian, basic English

Emiliano has been resident in Venice since he was born. At present he lives with his mother and has one sister who lives nearby them in Mestre. Emiliano gained his Laurea at Universita Ca Foscari in Computer Science and has been employed by IMAGO since April, working between church venues in and around the city. As well as being the only male in the team, Emiliano is also the sole Berlusconi supporter, much to the dismay of his Venetian colleagues. The quiet and tranquil aspect of Venice, despite the tourists, appeals to him, as does the slow pace of life. He is, however, greatly perturbed by the amount of litter that is generated every day as well as the magnitude of graffiti that seems to populate a vast majority of Venetian buildings. Emiliano takes his work very seriously and can often be seen studying the guide to La Maddelena church in earnest, intermittently reporting his findings with great enthusiasm and to the amusement of the New Zealand attendants.

The mafioso of Venezia?

 
Mafioso of Venezia?

If there is one thing you can be sure of on the winding streets of Venice, it is the presence of the gondolieri, lounging on bridges and trying to persuade people to take an 80 euro gondola ride. Whilst the tourists are often swayed by their cocky charm, most Venetians have less time and patience for the gondolieri. Why would this be? I decided to conduct some undercover research during my time in Venezia.

 

Suspicious activities...

So, it turns out there are all sorts of archaic rules and regulations surrounding the trade of the gondolieri. The whole business is very insulated and secretive, as you can only become a gondolier if your father was a gondolier, or your grandfather. Some Venetians refer to the gondolieri as 'the mafioso of Venice'! Justifiably so, it seems, as they don't have to pay the same tax rate as other Venetians, leaving the gondolieri laughing all the way to the bank and spending their euros on drawers full of stripey t-shirts and funny hats. 

 
 
Gondolieri 
 

Hmmmmm, so all this points to a very tightly controlled, closely knit fraternity who are not pestered by the Commune di Venezia. A couple of years ago a Venetian woman Giorgia Boscolo caused a great uproar when she expressed her desire to become a gondolier. Legitimately so, as her father (who is called Dante!) had been in the business. She finally proved to this masculine establishment, after many hours of training and testing, that she could row boats with the best of them.

Thanks to Ann Shelton for snapping this photo of Giorgia in action whilst she was in Venice:

Giorgia Boscolo, the first female gondolier of Venezia.

Meet the Venetians

Most would agree that one’s perspective of a city is enriched by having direct access to those who actually live in it, day to day. As attendants, we are so very fortunate to have this access in the form of our wonderful Italian co-attendants, all of whom are fiercely proud Venetians by birth and/or ancestry and all extremely smart and capable individuals. 

Since many of the visitors to the Biennale are locals, our Venetian cohorts are indispensable to us. In addition to performing daily duties alongside us at the venues, they are able to assist with communication breakdowns & re-direct lost and weary tourists/Biennale visitors, offer the occasional Italian language/history lesson, give recommendations to the best restaurants in the city far from the tourist hordes, engage in lively debate about the NZ exhibits and on occasion, wax lyrical about the complexities of political alignment within Italy. All with the utmost grace, professionalism, and with a smile. 

Present throughout the entire duration of the Biennale until it’s conclusion in November, our Italian colleagues will meet each of the NZ attendants for the duration of their post and must also say ‘Arrivederci’ on their departure. In other words, the Italians are running the endurance race, and we kiwi’s are the relay team alongside them. 

Over dinner last week the subject of farewells was ever present since the occasion marked the completion of Thomasin’s six-week term at the Biennale. Veronica, our remarkable Venetian/Sardinian/NZ host, lamented at the frequency of the NZ attendant turnover, explaining that close bonds are very quickly established and that for her and the girls who remain, departures still come as a shock. Acutely aware that I am already two weeks into my own term, I am mindful that my experience of Venice has been greatly impacted by meeting these girls and am resigned to the fact that when it is my turn to exit, there will be tears! 

But for now, I thought it was about time that our delightful Venetian whanau were introduced….

ANNA DE STEFANO

Venetian attendant for Francis Upritchard's Save Yourself, Palazzo Mangili-Valmarana

Born: Venice, 1988 (Taurus)

Lives: Lido, Venice, Italy

Occupation: Tertiary Student

Political views: Liberal

Languages: Italian, Venetian, Intermediate English, Basic German

Anna is currently a tertiary student studying for her Laurea (degree) in Art Restoration at Universita Ca Foscari. To enable her to undertake the highly specialized restoration work that is required in Venice, Anna intends to gain practical experience in either Rome or Florence following her graduation. Anna is a triplet and relayed an amusing story about the time she and her sister became local celebrities for dating a pair of twins. Anna would like to travel and is especially keen to visit London. She enjoys drawing and reading romance novels including literature by Jane Austen and Emily Bronte. Her pick of the Giardini is Tomas Saraceno from Argentina located in the Italian pavilion. 

MARZIA ORTOLANI

Venetian attendant for Francis Upritchard's Save Yourself, Palazzo Mangili-Valmarana

Born: Venice, 1988 (Leo)

Lives: San Polo, Venice, Italy

Occupation: Tertiary Student

Political views: Liberal

Languages: Italian, Basic Venetian, Intermediate English, Basic French

Marzia is studying for her Laurea in Art Conservation at Universita Ca Foscari. Like Anna, she intends to work abroad or in a larger city such as Rome or Milan for experience and eventually settle back in Venice to raise a family. Marzia’s maternal family originates from Southern Italy. Marzia is grateful that she has been raised in Venice and considers it rare to find a place where you can walk the streets alone at night without fear of harassment. She is fervent and liberal in her political views and is concerned that the youth of Venice are being overlooked in favor of economic gain through tourism. Venetians, especially young students, are slowly being pushed out of their city, since the housing and rent has become so inflated as a result of foreign demand for summer vacation houses and investment rentals for tourists. Marzia’s favorite authors include Milan Kundera and Dino Buzzati. Her favourite city is Rome and she would most like to visit New York. She owns a dog called Febe and is fiercely unapproachable before her breakfast has been consumed.

ANNA DAL BARGO

Venetian attendant for Judy Millar's Giraffe-Bottle-Gun, Chiesa La Maddelena

Born: Brazil (both parents are Venetian), 1991 (Aries)

Lives: Piazzale Roma, Venice, Italy

Occupation: Secondary School Student

Political views: Liberal

Languages: Italian, Basic Venetian, French

Anna is in her final year of secondary school, ‘Franchetti’ in Mestre. She is studying in the Classical School for Humanistic subjects (which includes Latin, Greek, Italian and English languages and literature) to which she transferred after completing two years of Scientifica (Science) school. Anna hopes to study medicine and psychology at the University of Padua. She is currently reading the Italian neoclassical author, Ugo Foscolo, a writer of similar stature and philosophy to Goethe. Anna plays the piano, flute and guitar and enjoys writing short stories and plays. She is particularly interested in developing narratives around the psychological transition from childhood to adulthood. Anna is currently working on a marvelous short story that gives life to the characters in Frances Upritchard’s exhibition. We eagerly await its publication!

Next blog: Maria Maltauro, Emiliano Ravagnan & Lucia Valle

End of the affair...

Being at the back end of the attendant schedule has its merits – the average temperature is more forgiving heading into the European fall and while the archetypal cobbled streets still heave under the weight of tourist flocks, the pedestrian traffic has eased somewhat following the crescendo that peaks during the mid-summer vacation high season. 

The down side is that by late September, pickings diminish slightly in terms of sourcing content for our blog. Previous attendants have accurately conveyed a sense of daily life in Venice, from navigating one’s way throughout the maze of crowded Venetian alleys, and sound musings upon the various Biennale pavilions on offer, to the fabulous produce markets and the finer intricacies of selecting the perfect gelato. Finding a topic that hasn’t already been covered can pose a challenge. 

However, what struck me quite rapidly in my first week of being resident in Venice (yes, aside from the frenzied plethora of sightseers and Kodak moments at every turn) is a dynamic tension between the ephemeral and the permanent. That while a transmutable disposition pervades the city’s arterial routes, characterized by the constant flow and circulation of people and water, there is a sense of timelessness that exists, augmented of course by the physical presence of the city itself – the dominance of the enduring materials of stone, mortar and marble that form it’s streets and architecture, encasing you on all sides. (Coming from an island swathed in green, the contrast is jolting and we kiwi’s tend to seek out refuge in the few concealed parks known mostly to the locals). 

But while Venice’s transient populace reinvents itself daily, the city itself remains a faithful, enduring entity. Indeed, Venice’s history as a contested site coveted for its strategic position as a major trading route, has seen numerous territorial rivalries played out over the centuries between bordering regions and from further afield, the Lomards, Turks, Dalmatians, Austrians, French and Spanish. It seems that still, even now, everyone wants a piece of Venezia and many of her passing suitors must at some point end the affair.

And so I leave you with a fond farewell to Thomasin, my departing flat mate and chef extraordinaire, accompanied by an amusing observation made by one of the Venetian attendants after I had asked her how, as a Venetian, she felt about her city being besieged by an endless torrent of admirers – 

‘Venice is like a woman, she is tired and stressed and needs a holiday herself!’

Well said Anna!